said Cal, trying unsuccessfully to get back his everyday manner.

Pink and Weary went over and took the dragging bridle-reins of their
mounts, caught a stirrup and swung up into the saddles silently.

"And say!" Happy Jack called softly, as they were going down the
slope. "Yuh better bring--a blanket."

Weary nodded, and they rode away, their horses stepping softly in the
thick grasses. When they were passed quite out of the presence of
the dead, they spurred their horses into a gallop.

The sun marked mid-afternoon when they returned, and the four who had
waited drew long breaths of relief at sight of them.

"We told Patsy we'd run onto a--den--"

"Oh, shut up, can't yuh?" Jack Bates interrupted shortly. "Yuh'll
have plenty uh time to tell us afterwards."

"We've got a place picked out," said Cal, and led them a little
distance up the slope, to a level spot in the shadow of a huge, gray
bowlder. "That's his headstone," he said, soberly. "The poor devil
won't be cheated out uh that, if we _can't_ mark it with his name.
It'll last as long as he'll need it."

Only in the West, perhaps, may one find a funeral like that. No
minister stood at the head of the grave and read, "Dust to dust" and
all the heartbreaking rest of it. There was no singing but from a
meadowlark that perched on a nearby rock and rippled his brief song
when, with their ropes, they lowered the blanket wrapped form. They
stood, with bare heads bowed, while the meadow lark sang. When he
had flown, Pink, looking a choir-boy in disguise, repeated softly and
incorrectly the Lord's prayer.

The Happy Family did not feel that there was any incongruity in what
they did. When Pink, gulping a little over the unfamiliar words,
said:

"Thine be power and glory--Amen;" five clear, youthful voices added
the Amen quite simply. Then they filled the grave and stood silent a
minute before they went down to where their horse stood waiting
patiently, with now and then a curious glance up the hill to where
their masters grouped.

The Happy Family mounted and without a backward glance rode soberly
away; and the trail they took led, not to the picnic, but to camp.

THE REVELER

Happy Jack, coming from Dry Lake where he had been sent for the mail,
rode up to the Flying U camp just at dinner time and dismounted
gloomily and in silence. His horse looked fagged--which was unusual in
Happy's mounts unless there was urgent need of haste or he was ou